City officials to raise domestic violence awareness by dancing

The district attorney is getting ready to dance (Credit: The Chronicle)

Take heed, San Franciscans. Anybody walking in or around City Hall on the afternoon of Valentine’s Day risks the sure-to-be awkward sight of seeing our city officials dancing. There’s even talk of a flash mob.

“I’m going to dance salsa, and my wife is going to laugh,” said District Attorney George Gascón with a grin.

No word yet on whether Mayor Ed Lee will trip the light fantastic, but he’s also scheduled to participate in “One Billion Rising,” a world-wide event to mark the 15th anniversary of playwright Eve Ensler’s V-Day on Feb. 14. Organizers say participants in 197 countries will call for an end to violence against women and girls by dancing. The City Hall event will go from 4-6 p.m.

(By the way, the V in V-Day stands for victory, valentine and vagina, according to organizers. Now you know.)

Gascón’s pledge to salsa dance was made at a Tuesday press conference with other city officials to highlight the V-Day festivities and to raise awareness of domestic violence. The district attorney made some not-so-veiled swipes at Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi, who plead guilty last year to a domestic violence-related misdemeanor.

“We still have people going around talking about how this is a private matter, that some of these women are not really victims,” Gascón said. “Real men do not abuse women.”

Gascón said in October he was pushing the Board of Supervisors to adopt legislation that would prohibit Mirkarimi from overseeing domestic violence cases in his department. The district attorney admitted Tuesday the effort went nowhere.

“We have come to the conclusion there isn’t support to make this happen at this time,” Gascón said.

An effort to wage a recall effort of Mirkarimi also appears to have stalled. A third effort, to allocate $750,000 in additional funds to pay for domestic violence personnel at the Department on the Status of Women and the district attorney’s office, will be discussed at supervisors’ committee hearing Wednesday.

The board’s legislative analyst, however, cast some doubt on the need to beef up the DA’s office, saying domestic violence caseloads have actually shrunk there in the last several years. Gascón said that prosecutors’ workloads are actually heavier, though, because far more cases are going to trial rather than being settled.

By the way, we don’t know whether Mirkarimi will join in the Valentine’s Day dancing. But should he and Gascón salsa their way into each other’s paths, it’s sure to be awkward. Gascón said the two haven’t spoken to each other in months.